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Water Recipes

How To Make Tea Curious Water

Materials & Tools You'll Need

  • Base water — either purified, reverse osmosis, or distilled water, which are all waters that have had the minerals removed from them through various methods. They serve as a blank slate for us to build our mineral profile on top of. These waters can often be found at the grocery store, at refill stations, or at specialty water stores.

    • Can also be made at home if you have a RO filter that does not automatically re-mineralize the water.

    • Can also be made at home with a Zero Water pitcher, but note that your mileage may vary: if your tap water is already very hard you will blow through the Zero Water pitcher very quickly, but some people have had success using this.

  • Minerals — linked below are the same food-grade minerals we use for our own water and products, and while they may sound a little intimidating at first if this is your first time handling these mineral salts, these are all commonly used in food applications and are the same minerals found in all natural mineral waters.

  • Tools:

    • Weighing Scale accurate to 0.001g, recommended to weigh out precise amounts of minerals

    • TDS Meter — this is the one we use and now offer since it works and is super stylish. But any other one should work fine.

    • Container for the water (standard 5 gallon/18.9 liter container), for water refills & to store water in

Your total starting investment into these tools will run around 60 USD, but this will then allow you to make your own mineral water at around $0.10/liter or less, a pretty vast improvement from buying bottled mineral water from the store. You can also opt to pick up pre-made options from the Tea Curious Water store if you prefer — an option we made available after we realized not everyone wanted to formulate entirely from scratch. Pick what suits you best!

Making Your First Batch

To make Tea Curious water, start by measuring out the appropriate amounts of each mineral for the amount of water you need, based on the following chart:

For example, for 5 gallons (18.9 liters) of water, weigh out:

  • 0.226 grams of potassium bicarbonate

  • 0.34 grams of calcium chloride

  • 0.472 grams of magnesium sulfate

  • 0.34 grams of sodium bicarbonate

    • If using sodium carbonate (v.1.0): 0.226 grams

  • Mix with the water! Allow 5-10 minutes to completely dissolve, if needed.

You can stop here and have a perfectly great water for tea -- seriously!


However, there's one more component that, while a little more tricky to get, is just the cherry on top on this already-awesome water, and that's amorphous silica. I especially recommend it if you're a bit of a texture & aftertaste junkie like we are with our teas.

Refer to the table above for silica/silicon dioxide measurements. For example, for a 5 gallon / 18.9 liter container:

  • 0.189 grams of amorphous, food grade silicon dioxide

  • (Optional) Non-crystalline, amorphous silica (do not use crystalline silica!)

  • Mix with the water, together with the other ingredients! Allow 5-10 minutes to completely dissolve, if needed.

Originating and additional information from our partners at Tea Curious: https://www.teacurious.com/water-recipe
Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20240924233032/https://www.teacurious.com/water-recipe/ 

On how to use water for tea: https://www.teacurious.com/how-to-use-water-to-influence-tea-flavor 
Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20241216030525/https://www.teacurious.com/how-to-use-water-to-influence-tea-flavor 

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